Investigation of some morphological characteristics, chlorophyll fluorescence and photosynthetic indices of C. alternifolius, V. zizanioide and A. vera irrigated with urban and industrial wastewater

Soil pollution due to urban and industrial effluents containing heavy metals is one of the most serious environmental problems, and phytoremediation is a bio-cost-effective method for removing heavy metals from contaminated soil and water. In this regard, choosing the suitable plant for phytoremediation according to the type of pollution is very important. Since in addition to the amount of heavy metal absorption, the morphological and physiological characteristics of plants are also important in phytoremediation, an experiment was designed to investigate some morphological characteristics and fluorescence parameters of chlorophyll and the content of photosynthetic pigments of three plants including C. alternifolius, V. zizanioide and A. vera under two types of urban and industrial wastewater treatments. The results showed that urban and industrial wastewater treatments caused significant changes in all of the examined parameters. The interaction of wastewater and plant species on fresh weight of roots and shoots, dry weight of shoots, F0, Fm, Fv, chlorophyll a, b as well as Chlorophyll a+b were significant and for the other evaluated parameters were not significant. In general, based on this study, regarding the phytoremediation potential of the examined plants, it can be said that in soils polluted with urban wastewater, V. zizanioide and C. alternifolius and in soils polluted with industrial wastewater, V. zizanioide and A. vera were more effective.